In Person: Miriam Bajtala

Since her first videos, Miriam Bajtala has combined performance with fundamental questions of the filmic image and its temporal and structural dimensions. In five of the programmed works, she is also the performer herself, playfully engaging in a dialogue with the camera: In doing so, she literally falls out of the frame or evades the image through glare and fleeing movements. She makes it impossible to orientate herself in the monstrous building on the island of Rügen - planned by the Nazis as a holiday resort. In 3 voices, she finds a way to make her own experience of losing her mother tongue tangible. Fascinating and disturbing at the same time, in Sofern Real she examines the descriptiveness and representability of mental illness. (bbu)

LIVING COLLECTION sixpackfilm

After 25 years of mediation work, sixpackfilm's collection brings together a rich selection of all genres, represented by more than 1,500 cinematic works that call out to be shown regularly in Vienna in various contexts. One focus of our collection is on the classics of Austrian experimental film, almost all of which are represented. Many of the historical works are now part of the canon of international film or art history and have a permanent place in international cinemas and museums. 

The reopening of the Metro Kinokulturhaus and the intimate atmosphere of the Eric Pleskow Hall inspired sixpackfilm to enter into this long-term co-operation with the Filmarchiv Austria.

Short fiction films, avant-garde films, animations, cinematic essays, documentaries and much more that oscillates between these categories will be brought together in individual programmes in the Living Collection sixpackfilm series, not neatly separated according to the usual categorisations. Rather, the focus is on the search for thematic connections, developments, different perspectives and connecting lines, sometimes also in the context of international filmmaking.

Historical and contemporary "classics" meet works by filmmakers who have not yet or no longer received the attention they deserve Socio-political, social and aesthetic issues interact with purely formal experiments. Radical or actionist performances are combined with surreal stories, commissioned works for trailers or TV with abstract beauties. A lively montage, not a fixed history of masterpieces. The unifying element in all the films and videos is their unmistakable, idiosyncratic visual grammar. When we offer a personal screening of works by a filmmaker, a mediating discussion with the artist will bring their themes and cinematic realisation closer to the audience. Otherwise, the film event is accompanied by a short introduction on the first Monday of every month. 

(Brigitta Burger-Utzer)

Program
Anleitung No. 3 (Person M.) (AT 2001, video, 5 min.)
Im Leo (AT 2003, video, 2 min.)
Mackey’s Escape (AT 2005, video, 1:45 min.)
Paranoia (Death Valley) (AT 2005, video, 5:30 min.)
Ohne Schatten: satellite me (AT 2009, video, 4 min.)
3 Stimmen (AT 2011, video, 13 min.)
kritische räume brauchen zuneigung (AT 2014, video, 12 min.)
Sofern Real (AT 2016, video, 30 min.)